211761P.pdf   07/01/2022  Gina Torres  v.  Lance Coats
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  21-1761
                          and No:  21-1918
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Shepherd, Author, with Benton and Stras, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. Hammett was killed by St. Louis Police officers 
   during the execution of a search warrant at his grandfather's home; his 
   mother and grandmother brought this Section 1983 excessive force and 
   unlawful seizure and state law wrongful death action against the officers, 
   the City and the Department; the City and officers moved for summary 
   judgment based on qualified immunity and sovereign and official immunity, 
   and the district court denied, in the main, their motions. Defendants 
   appeal. The court lacked jurisdiction to consider the denial of 
   defendants' motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs' excessive force 
   claims because there were genuine issues of material fact concerning 
   whether the officers used excessive force, including whether the decedent 
   was armed and whether he posed an imminent threat; plaintiff did not show 
   defendants Boyce or Lacy were personally involved in the alleged use of 
   excessive force, and they were entitled to qualified immunity on 
   plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment excessive force claims; the issue of whether 
   plaintiffs' decedent had a clearly established right to be from the use of 
   deadly force in this situation is dependent on the disputed issues as to 
   whether he was armed, and the district court did not err in denying the 
   remaining officers' motion for summary judgment; with respect to plaintiff 
   Dennis Lopez's claim that he was subjected to excessive force and unlawful 
   seizure, there was no application of physical force or acquiescence to a 
   show of authority, so Dennis was not seized for Fourth Amendment purposes, 
   and the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on his excessive 
   force and unlawful seizure claims; the defendants were entitled to 
   qualified immunity on plaintiffs' Section 1985 conspiracy claims as the 
   City could not conspire with itself through the defendant officers acting 
   within the scope of their employment; it is not clearly established that 
   the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine does not apply to Section 1983 
   conspiracy claims, and the district court's denial of qualified immunity 
   on the Section 1983 conspiracy claims is reversed; with respect to 
   defendants' claims they were entitled to official immunity on plaintiffs' 
   state law claims, the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the matter 
   because the question presented was one of the sufficiency of the evidence 
   rather than an issue of law; on this record, the district court erred in 
   concluding that disputed issues of material fact existed as to whether the 
   City was self-insured, and the denial of the City's claim of sovereign 
   immunity is reversed.